Agenda item

Report of the Executive Director of Community and Children’s Services.

The Committee received two reports of the Executive Director, Community and Children’s Services in respect of the BEO’s engagement with Spike Global on an initial proposal to develop a bespoke app for the Barbican Estate.

During the discussion, the following points were raised:

1.     The Assistant Director outlines the Altair report as the basis for requiring an Improved use of technology, having aresident portal and single point of contact is one as well as drawing on his own professional experience when asked by the committee.

2.     The Assistant Director confirmed that the figure of £52,332 was made up of the initial £15,000 set up costs and year 1 subscription fee (not including VAT) the Assistant Director was clear costs for years 2/3 should be reviewed and signed off by committee again for transparency.

3.     The CoLP and Corporate IT departments have both been provided security and GDPR information by the provider Spike for review. To date there have been no concerns shared.

4.     The Assistant Director was clear it was difficult to deliver tangible saving figures at this moment in time. The App would be used for identifying trends, monitoring trends, operating reports automatically and could better serve working parties, BEO staff and residents. Overall, it would streamline communication coming in and out of the BEO, such as regular updates and reporting of faults/issues. It would encourage a change to working practices to ensure the App could be used to its full potential. The Assistant Director was confident this would drive some savings the committee asked these were attempted to be quantified.

5.     The proposal was the app would be service charge recoverable and there was some discussion by the committee on this.

6.     The Asst Director confirmed that alternative arrangements would be made for those residents who chose not to use the app including a web browser, retained email correspondence (run through the app) and for those with no access to technology communal board.

7.     Members considered a ‘walk through’ by a cross section of residents and staff together would be worthwhile. It was confirmed that there would be no cost to this and the AD would take this forward as a condition of approval to proceed.

8.     the Exec Dir welcomed members’ questions and comments to gauge views on the adoption of the app.  The majority of the members did not object to the BRC approving the proposal although there should be a ‘walk through’ and review before the pilot phase as per point 7.

9.     The cost of introducing an appropriate financial and performance monitoring data framework was mentioned and it was confirmed that RIT had held discussions with Spike Global, and they were satisfied with what method was needed to include the necessary CRM data into this app. This would be included in the overall costs, with no additional cost from BEO.

RESOLVED, that – the report and its contents be noted.